Why Sharing the Chores is Actually Awesome for Your Sex Life

A few years ago, there was a lot of chatter about how sharing the chores could tank your sex life. A study from 2012 looked at how often married couples were having sex, and how they were divvying up their housework. The conclusion? Men reported lower sexual frequency when they participated in "core" domestic tasks (things like cooking, washing the dishes, or doing laundry), and highest sexual frequency when they stuck to "traditional" tasks (like paying the bills and doing outdoor work).

The implication was that if you wanted to have a vibrant sex life, you had to assume more traditional gender roles, including taking on the majority of housework. The study was basically viewed as the final word, and even the New York Times trumpeted, "Does a More Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex?" (Their answer: Yes.)

But new research says it's not so clear-cut. (And thank goodness.) A new study re-examines the relationship between housework and sexual relationships, and the conclusion is totally different.

The problem, according to the new study, is that previous research on this subject has relied on data from the National Survey of Families and Households, which has survey responses from 1992-1994. That means that their data is over two decades old—and relationships sure have changed a lot in two decades. When the researchers looked at data from the Marital and Relationship Survey from 2006, they looked at the same variables (frequency of sex compared and gendered division of chores), but they found that the more hours of housework, the greater frequency of sex.

They also found that men and women sometimes had different opinions about how "equally" they shared the housework—men were more likely to say they had a 50/50 split, whereas women often reported that they did more of the chores. (And we're going to have to side with the ladies here, since men reported doing an average of 2.2 hours of housework while women reported an average of 3.8 hours.)

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